Berlin, Leery of One Bush, Prepares to Meet Jeb

BERLIN — They marvel at the enduring influence of a single family in American politics. They recall the painful blunders of his brother. And they confess that the last name — Bush — summons instant unease.

The denizens of this city, which has known war, peace and the reach of American military might as intimately as any, are warily digesting the reality that another member of the Bush clan is seeking the presidency and using Berlin as a backdrop for his ambitions.

Jeb Bush’s visit, part of a major tour of Europe starting Tuesday, will serve as a high-profile test of his standing in a country that soured on his brother, President George W. Bush, and turned out by the tens of thousands in July 2008 to embrace Barack Obama as the antidote.

Interviews across Berlin suggest that Mr. Bush, a former governor of Florida, arouses the same kind of skepticism by association that, fairly or not, he inspires in the United States.

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Tens of thousands of people turned out in Berlin in July 2008 to embrace Senator Barack Obama.CreditJens Meyer/Associated Press

Wolfgang Schwens, 48, said the thought of Mr. Bush’s campaigning in Berlin did not sit well. Strolling around the hip neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg, a part of the former East Berlin that has been thoroughly revamped since the Berlin Wall fell, he pointed to the record of George W. Bush.

“It’s a good thing he isn’t president anymore,” said Mr. Schwens, a consultant to the start-up and medium-size companies for which the German capital is increasingly known.

The concept of a Jeb Bush visit to Berlin, just days before he is set to declare his presidential candidacy, “is not especially great,” Mr. Schwens said. In general, he said, international politicians come to town for themselves, not Germany or Berlin.

When Mr. Bush arrives on Tuesday for two days of meetings and speeches, he will find a country whose sentiments toward his family are deeply conflicted. The second American war in Iraq, engineered by George W. Bush, was profoundly unpopular in Germany.

In the spring of 2008, the Pew Research Center polled Germans about the American president. The verdict was exceedingly unkind: A mere 4 percent said they possessed a “lot of confidence” in Mr. Bush’s leadership; 59 percent expressed “no confidence at all.”

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President George W. Bush in Berlin in 2002 with Germany’s president, Johannes Rau, left.CreditHerbert Knosowski/Associated Press

“George W. Bush smashed a lot of china,” said Christian Lammert, a professor at the John F. Kennedy Institute at the Free University of Berlin.

Recalling the crowd of 200,000 Berliners who gathered to greet Mr. Obama before his election, Mr. Lammert added, “The measure of German sentiment was how strongly Obama was celebrated in 2008.”

But German regard for Mr. Bush’s father is considerably higher and warmer. After the Berlin Wall tumbled in 1989, the elder President George Bush did much to reunite Germany less than a year later, endorsing the idea despite the resistance of France and Britain.

“He was a key factor, and a key actor, for unification,” said Joschka Fischer, who as foreign minister from 1998 to 2005 was part of the German government that opposed the 2003 Iraq war.

Interviews with Berlin residents about Jeb Bush suggest that memories of his brother, rather than his father, are freshest and that they have not measurably improved with time.

Nina Wagner, a 32-year-old teacher, had a pile of notebooks to grade as she enjoyed the sunshine in a park named after the artist Käthe Kollwitz, who chronicled Germany’s turbulent first half of the 20th century in searing sculptures and etchings.

Ms. Wagner said that she had never heard of Jeb Bush but that his plans to meet with conservatives in Berlin matched her perception of President George W. Bush as “just a politician who is interested in money, his own private interests and those of a certain political class.”

Germans, like many Europeans, remain puzzled by America’s system for selecting a leader — for its length, its expense and its inclusion of what Mr. Lammert, the professor, called “crazy outsiders” with little chance at actually securing the Republican or Democratic nomination for president.

But the Germans’ history-laden capital seems to have become an obligatory stop on the campaign path to the White House. Last year, Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled here, inspiring a largely female crowd on a summer Sunday as she promoted her latest book. Mr. Obama was in Germany on Sunday and Monday for a summit meeting of global leaders at a Bavarian castle.

Mr. Bush, who is expected to declare his candidacy next Monday, is scheduled to speak and take questions in Berlin for about half an hour at a business gathering of Germany’s center-right Christian Democrats, the party of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Ms. Merkel is also expected to deliver remarks at the event, though it is unclear whether she will meet with him. Mr. Bush will then head to Poland and Estonia, determined to burnish his fluency in global affairs.

Aides to Mr. Bush said that his trip and remarks would emphasize the rich history of America’s relationship with Europe and would seek to repair what they describe as the “frayed relationships” between the United States and its allies under Mr. Obama.

Republican presidential candidates have excoriated Mr. Obama for failing to curb the aggressions of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, a theme Mr. Bush is likely to touch on this week, implicitly or explicitly. That view may resonate especially in Poland and Estonia, where Russia’s actions in Ukraine over the past year have done much to rekindle Cold War fears and suspicions. Those former Communist lands — “new Europe,” in the parlance of former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld — supported George W. Bush’s push into Iraq.

Jeb Bush’s journey comes as the Republican field continues to expand, and he has struggled to establish himself as the clear favorite. His aides hope that the trip can reinforce Mr. Bush’s stature as a mature leader, comfortable and confident discussing issues of international concern.

At this point, Germans are about as engaged in the 2016 presidential campaign as most Americans are, which is not all that much, giving Mr. Bush plenty of time to forge a bond.

Mr. Lammert said that for now, “most people in Germany do not know what he stands for,” and that they were stunned that the United States might again face a presidential race pitting a Bush against a Clinton.

“We are a little amazed,” he said, “that rich families can in fact have that much influence.”